Nigeria’s public debt portfolio is in order despite an increase in the country’s total debt from 4.2 trillion Nigerian naira (USD27.6 billion) in September 2010 to 4.5 trillion Nigerian naira by the end of last year, the head of the country’s Debt Management Office said.
The country’s debt-to-gross-domestic-product ratio of 19 percent is way below the internationally acceptable standard of 40 percent for countires that are in the same income group as Nigeria, Abraham Nwankwo said, according to the Nigerian Tribune.
Meantime, the African Development Bank has encouraged Nigeria to maximize its use of AfDB’s lending mechanisms.
John Baffoe, the bank’s representative in Nigeria, criticized the country for relying on bilateral loans, which he says are not as secure as multilateral ones in terms of default, the Nigerian Tribute reports.
